It’s Pretty To Think That Way

 

               It’s Pretty To Think That Way

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Warning: Merrily mixed metaphors ahead.

I do like weather. While some might talk about the weather to keep conversation on a superficial basis, I talk about weather because weather is vital.

What a topsy-turvy year this is for weather. Montana. Mexico. Not much different down here where I live in Jalisco. In other words, it’s an unpredictable mess. I follow eastern Montana weather closely thanks to my daughter, Montana friends and the Havre Weekly.

I can’t help but wonder if this is the kind of weather set up, with all the surprising rain, that prompted the infamous flood of pamphlets that lured homesteaders to such inhospitable locations as eastern Montana with the promise that “Rain follows the plow!”

From our standpoint of distance and history, we might wonder how anybody could have entertained such unfounded, unscientific, unweatherific, illogical, irrational nonsense. But believe it they did, plows and kitchen tools and children in wagons, farmers along with plenty of neophytes left both workable land and inner cities by the hundreds, struggled across what later became several States, built drafty cabins or dirt hovels and plowed the prairies and waited for the rain which never fell and never fell and never fell.

Thinking that if one plowed the plot, dropped in seed, and waited, rain would follow, reminds me of the fairy tale of the Shoemaker and the Elves.

I do like fairy tales. When I had my little workshop in Poulsbo, Washington, I liked to prepare my worktable or station for the next day, set it up with cut patterns or springs ready to tie or whatever the next step required, in hopes that the elves might appear in the night hours and finish the job. In hopes, tongue in cheek. Every morning I had a good laugh when the elves neglected to show. Not even one time.

The difference is that I knew it was a fairy tale, I wasn’t a shoemaker and knew the elves would not come but used the story as self-entertainment.

Not for one moment will I try to tell you that I can’t fall for my own fairy tale. Just a year ago this month, I began preparing for a move ten miles west and further into the mountains and part of my reasoning, this is true, is that it rains more there than here at the Rancho. It does. The water is better, not so super-saturated with minerals and the water system is more reliable. It is so.

Blithely, I managed to ignore other “weather” signs. Some I couldn’t see until I lived under, around and inside them. My decision to move back I made entirely on my own, based on storm clouds mounting on the horizon of history if not geography.

I do like weather. I’m crap at reading weather signs, especially in these turbulent conditions and interesting times.

Rain does not follow the plow. I won’t set out flowerpots with seeds and wait for the cloud elves to drop water. I have pared down my garden considerably, to herbs and a few flowers because flowers are important. I will gladly drag hose from pot to pot on the days when no rain falls. I will revel when the rain drops from the lowering sky.

When I wander into fantasy fairy weather land, I will remember my Aunt Mary telling me, “It’s pretty to think that way.”

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

August 14, 2025

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The Horse Runs Faster to the Barn

 

The Horse Runs Faster to the Barn

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Having all my stuff back at the Rancho doesn’t mean I’m settled down and done.

There is a lot to be said for staying put forever. Stability. Knowing your surroundings and, whether or not they are close friends, knowing those around you intimately. Comfort.  A sense of permanence that rolling stones don’t get to have. Moss. I like moss.

It took me two months to move to Oconahua. It took twelve days for Leo to move me back, complete with bamboo, herbs and my little dog, Lola. There must be a moral or a meaning to this story, if only I can figure it out. The horse runs faster.

We’ve worked hard to get my belongings back into some kind of order. We? Me point, Leo grunt. Leo has been a trooper, putting up with my extra jobs along with taking care of several other houses and yards on the Rancho.

In at least one instance, I got a little carried away with creating spaces differently arranged than when I lived here previously. The differences are part of my fun. Poor Lola. I moved her dog dwelling closer to the front door. That night we had a rather daunting storm. Water everywhere. Soaked doggy bedding.  Back to the tried and true and dry.

I’m bleeding money but that is all part of moving, necessary expenses.

My plants made the move without going into severe shock. Constant rains help. I’m loving them and they are loving me.

My house is in order, bodega mostly settled, patio sort of sorted. The horse is in the barn, so to speak, munching oats, or soon will be.

Today I made a nice batch of granola. Harvested a clutch of limes from my key lime tree and juiced them for the freezer. I’ve ingredients on the counter to make a pizza for dinner. It’s an ordinary day, a restful day, a day of peace.

Now I’m off to mop, mop, mop and then to flop, flop, flop. An ordinary day.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

August 7, 2025

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I didn’t go to kindergarten.

 

               I didn’t go to kindergarten.

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Since we didn’t have kindergarten in the rural school in which I began my education, I missed the chance to learn everything I needed to know in one fell swoop of a year.

I have had to learn everything I needed to know the hard way, life’s lessons over time. I’m still enrolled in that particular school.

Smashed flat beneath a bundle of notebooks I no longer need but hang onto for looking back at names and memories, is a small bundle of flyers for plays at the theater I helped build from nothing but scratch and desire. I’m quite proud of that chapter in my life.

What I want to do, without the expense and fuss of frames, is to paste these flyers to a piece of card stock or something similar and preserve the fronts, crumples and dings and all, and hang my theatre memories in my bodega sewing room where I actually have usable wall space.

When I was in first and second grades, art consisted pretty much of paper and coloring crayons. Pitiful, but, hey, it’s a start. I’m not sure about the best materials to use for my “art” project, but I know who has the answers.

My friend Crinita, who will be here in three weeks for a short stay, is a teacher, a primary teacher. Retired, but at her core being, a teacher through and through.

I could figure out how to put together my project, but when one has an expert next door, why not use her skills and knowledge.  Crin is also a lot of fun.

I’m not without artistic skills. When I was 8, 9 and 10, I used to make my own paper dolls and design their clothing.

No scrap of paper hit the burn bin without my scrutiny. I remember removing the turquoise and silver paper covering from the Ajax Cleanser. Do you realize the possibilities of beauty with a scrap of turquoise and silver?

Armed with nothing more than a ruler, scissors and crayons and white paste, from piles of these papers I created entire shoe box rooms with furnishings. Lamps from scraps and a sucker stick. Windows with a view from scraps of cardboard and my Dad’s match book covers of birds and flowers.

Kindergarten is important. I wish I could have gone. Instead, I had unstructured time and imagination. Also important.

Next month I’ll let you know the outcome of my kindergarten “art” project. I wonder if they still make pots of white paste?

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 31, 2025

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Positively Giddy

 

        Positively Giddy

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I wrote a short note to my friend Sandy in Washington to let her know I am still alive, busy unpacking, cleaning, placing, creating different livable spaces in my familiar old home, back in Etzatlan. (The first night I tucked in with only a bed and stove, my dog and myself.)

Then came the first load of boxes and furnishings. Followed by . . .

One of my favorite things is to create areas of functional beauty in my home. Perhaps I waxed a bit bombastically when talking with her about how much fun I am having.

Sandy wrote back, “You sound positively giddy.”

Perhaps I am just a bit giddy. I find pleasure in simple things, in accomplishments, and this work gives me great pleasure.

Just the same as I wrote to Sandy, this is a short note to you. I hope, and hope does seem to spring forth eternally, I hope to be more sane and able to write in a sensible manner by this time next week.

I will add one very short and scary story. With all the ins and outs and all around the house, full box in, empty box out, walk the dog, full box in, as though I’m on a merry-go-round, leaf and other tree debris walk in on my shoes and some bits decide to stay.

This morning I almost picked up a quite large centipede, in clever disguise, with my fingers, when I remembered to poke it with my cane first. It looked like a curly leaf, until it didn’t. In this subtropical country, it is amazing how many tiny critters mimic leaves and grasses, almost invisible, until they aren’t!

Oh, wait, one more little tidbit. In my bedroom I have a beautiful print of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a sandalwood statue of Quan Yin, a female Buddha from my trip to China, and a sandalwood carving of Ganesh from my India trip. It’s not really a shrine. Okay, it is a shine to remind me of my connection to Great Spirit, to God, however you understand God.

Alongside these, I hung a bedpan from my last surgery, which I had filled with an arrangement of silk flowers, a flower pot if you will, to remind me not to take myself so seriously.

Adios for now, from Giddy in Mexico.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 24, 2025

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A Rolling Stone?

 

A Rolling Stone?

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Some decisions are so obvious that it is easy to say “yes” or “no” or “in the barrel”. Others take time and some are painful. I made an extremely hard decision this week. I am moving back to Etzatlan to my empty casa there from this beautiful home I’ve lived in the past eight months in Oconahua.

Last week we had a barbeque for the 4^th, we being three gringos and four Mexicanos. Ana told us about a niece and her family from the States who were moving back and needed to rent a home until they found a place to buy or build. My first cringing thought was that I am living in their perfect transition home.

More than once Ana and Michelle have talked about the possibility that friends or relatives might be needing an interim place to live. Those discussions were theoretical. Now they were talking about real people with names.

Ironically, my empty house, which is on the market, immediately, last week, garnered two offers of purchase. I turned them down. During the last week of June, I had accepted a lucrative offer for a 6 month rental. I took a deep breath and notified my agent that, oops, with regrets, circumstances changed and I want, I need, my house for me.

That’s my story in a nutshell, minus several toss-and-turn nights.

Moving here took weeks. Moving back will take weeks. I’ll return with memories and regrets. I won’t get to see that little mule colt grow up. Both places have their own distinct advantages. It’s not like I’m leaving the country. Ana and Michelle are good friends. We will visit. We probably will meet for coffee more often than we do now, living next door!

When I get moved back into my place, I will make changes. Change seems to beget changes. Little things. For example, I’ll move my herbs and geraniums back with me and my dog, but I will not replace the 130 pots I sold last fall in which I had an extensive garden. I’ll hang up my farmer’s hat.

During the days I mulled over my decision options, I consulted friends, friends with no skin in the game. I asked them to make any comment, any criticism, even if they needed to tell me I’m crazy. I did not say a word, however, to my friends on the Rancho. I already know what they would say. They are selfish. They’d say, “Oh, good, come back. We want you here.”

Some might say, “Oh, you made a wrong decision when you moved to Oconahua.” I disagree. These months here on the mountainside have been precious to me, an extended vacation.

Long ago I came to believe that there are no wrong decisions, just decisions.  This decision has these consequences. That decision has those consequences. Consequences come in a mixed bag, joy and pain together. This is my belief, with my experiences. Mine. I would never try to convince you that this is “truth” or that you should think my way. Shudders.

I make mistakes. Of course, I do. My big mistake in this situation was to ignore that tiny niggling concern I had back before my move to Oconahua, a shadow of concern that my friends might need this new house for their friends and relatives who, given political uncertainties, might opt to either relocate or return to Mexico.

That was a mistake, but, a mistake I made for which I have no regret. Consequences, right? My time here has been wondrous. Now I shall step aside for others to enjoy this special place.

I’ll return to my other special place, make some changes to make living there easier for me. It is a win-win, all the way around.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 17, 2025

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Tractors and Horses and History

 

Tractors and Horses and History

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What I really want is to talk about tractors and horses. But, I’ll start with history.

I almost got in a fight over history the other day. I came so close. I managed to stop my mouth just in time.

I’ve always liked history. Back a thousand years ago when I went to Northern, one could immerse oneself in one’s field of study, no minor, just lots and lots of history. So, I did just that.

In terms of the job market back then, it was pretty much a worthless field I plowed. In terms of learning to see the world around me, it was invaluable.

 One learns to take nothing at face value.  What you see is the surface. Black/White?  Either/Or? They don’t exist. Every person, place, thing, event can be, should be, looked at from several points of view.

What happened the other day that got me in hot water was just this. My friend, who is an astute thinker in most cases, made one of those dangerous black or white statements, concerning historical events, one sided. Immediately my mind flooded with a hundred points of both history and science with which to refute her words. I, foolishly, started with my first example. She cut me off, “I know I’m right. I read it.”

Well, shut my mouth. I know not to argue with that. Mostly, I was surprised. Astonished. I also am aware that we all have one or two narrow-minded tunnels and that I have my own.

Being able to see 82 different points of view around XYZ surely makes it hard to see my world in definitive, cut and dried statements. I wouldn’t trade my awkward multi-viewpoint ability for the apparent assurance that others seem to get with more simple points of view.

In a different field, out here on the outer edge of town, most plots of land have a tiny section for growing corn or cane or agave. Compared to a Montana wheat field, you might say, “Oh, you mean a garden plot.”

I do not spend my day hanging out the window to see what’s happening along the street. A diesel engine idling outside the window will draw me over to see what’s going on.

The latest tractor to catch my eye was not nearly as old as the one pulling the two-prong harrow in the lot across the street a few weeks ago. This one was old, minus most of the original color, had obviously never been sheltered in a shed, but still had discernable print.

I took the make and model number to my computer and found the tractor to be a 1975 Ford. Only fifty years old. This tractor had hydraulics to lift the harrow at the end of the row rather than a rope to pull it out of the ground. As soon as the field to the north of our wall was suitably tilled, the tractor took off, returned with a corn planter. At the speed things grow here, I figure next month I’ll see corn tassels pop over the wall.

I don’t know if anyone here in Oconahua still plows with horses. Probably so. I have only the limited view of part of my street. But many men ride horses to work. And, to the bar. And, for romancing.

The dappled gray, the brown mare and the burro across and down one lot have cleared that plot of every blade of green. I noticed a young man, about ten years old, at a guess, who moves the horses to a different place when there is nothing left to eat. With the rains, grass grows quickly. Three or four days later, the horses are back, mowing every leaf and blade.

Up the street two plots, there is a beauty of a bay mare, I’m fairly sure it is a mare. She’s awfully round so I expect to see a babe by her side soon.

I love that I get to see glimpses of the past. I cannot romanticize the past. When that Ford tractor was new, most of the men here worked up at the mines. When that young boy who moves the horses from plot to plot comes of age, he will probably go to University in Guadalajara. Everything changes. With change comes what we label good or label bad as well as 82 points between.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 10, 2025

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Perceptions

 

       Perceptions

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While mopping my floors, I escorted an ant out of my house and set it free. Do not get excited. I don’t know why I did not squash it underfoot as I usually do. Ants are the bane of our lives here. So many sizes. So many varieties. A never-ending supply.

Don’t even think that I’d gotten Zen over that ant. I didn’t even give it thought. Simply picked it up in my fingertips and flipped it out the screen door.

If I had been going Zen about anything, I should have been concerned for my newest house guest, Pierre, the lizard, around which I had just swished my mop, one of the small variety, quite capable of startling me several times a day. It is not a gecko. I don’t see gecko feet.  I’ve not heard the gecko bark and we’ve shared space this past week. My discarded ant could have contributed to Pierre’s food supply. Lizards eat bugs. Ants? Spiders? Bugs of which we have plenty, outside, not in my house. Okay, some in my house.

I am quite capable of reading deeper, esoteric, meaning into any situation and being utterly wrong. Perhaps over-thinking is a form of self-entertainment. No Zen this time.

Yesterday, mid-afternoon, the sky suddenly loomed low and black. I went outside and looked up toward the top of the mountain. I swear I could hear the rain coming. I, quick, wrote to my daughter, Dee Dee, “I hear the rain hitting the tree leaves, looks like a huge storm. I want to let you know we might lose power.”

At our elevation, most of the trees are broad leaf types. (We have some pines, which I call frothy pines because the clusters of needles look frothy.) When the rain hits the broad leaves, it is noisy like hail falling.

Swoosh, down the mountain the storm roared. An hour later I wrote my daughter. “Well, that went over in an instant. We had gusty wind, a light sprinkle, the black clouds rushed over and beyond in mere minutes. The noises I heard? Wind rustling the leaves, not rain. Not rain. I was wrong.”

A couple of weeks ago our rainy season began. Rain daily, rain nightly, with hardly a pause. I like rain. No complaint about rain. This year we have a different pattern to the rain. Since living here in the sub-tropics, what I have known, what I expect, are sunshine days and rainy afternoons and evenings. What are landed with this time around are gray, gloomy, wet days, all of them. I’m not saying this means anything. It just is the way it is.

I will say that with a solar water heater, a good day is a day when we have enough hot water that I can shower, even when the water is not scalding hot like I want it! I like my solar water heater. However, it does require significant patches of sunlight. My water is cold. My house is cold. Last night I went to sleep with my wool socks on my feet, thinking about sliding a pair onto my hands.

Oh, well. Ants are not important. Rain will fall. Sun will shine. People are important.

A couple weeks ago my daughter went to Great Falls to attend the memorial for her Aunt Lois. She met up with, connected with cousins she had not seen in too many years, not since all the cousins were curtain climbers.

A sad element of divorce is that relatives get displaced or misplaced. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we, with one judgment, cut off half our family? These young men are my nephews. I wish I could have gone with her. I have some stories I could have told. Lois was only a year or two older than me. Our lives split off in different directions.

Speaking of different directions, Where, oh where is my Pierre. I hunted here. I hunted there. I looked around most everywhere.

I’d become enamored with my little companion. He was no longer afraid of me though I must have loomed large in his life. Maybe he left family out in the rock garden. Maybe he’d only come inside to explore. Maybe he discovered that the grass was not greener. Maybe he wanted his mommy.

Pierre the Lizard has done a flit. He has escaped the confines of domestic life and is once more at loose in the wilds. I feel bereft. I kind of miss him.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 3, 2025

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Plans and Other Silliness

 

               Plans and Other Silliness

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This is the fifth named storm of the hurricane season, heading straight for our little town of Oconahua, like an arrow shot from a giant’s bow. Erick is its name.

Oh, wait. I was just reminded there is no such thing as a hurricane season.

How silly of me. I forget a lot these days, as it seems many things I thought I knew or could count on are being declared null and void. Silly me.

In my daftness of mind, I make plans, which truly is a silly thing to do. Nevertheless. I do.

My master plan to wait out two days of forecast non-stop rain, which no doubt, will include loss of electric power, loss of internet and loss of phone service, begins in the kitchen.

My dough is resting in the refrigerator. I mixed pumpkin pulp from the pumpkin Michelle gave me from her garden into pie filling. Pumpkin pie will be Phase One.

Phase Two will be another pie, made from my 15-Bean Soup, which I load with veggies. Years ago, I discovered this thick soup makes a yummy pie. Pies are good keepers for those “just in case” times. Such as, just in case I don’t want to open the refrigerator because the power is OUT.

Phase Three is to mix a slurry from ciruelas and mangos, both from local neighboring gardens, which will make aqua frescas enough for four days.

Phase Four, to be activated tomorrow, since we are assured, despite bigger brains than mine saying there is no such thing, that tomorrow will bring an entire day of non-stop rain, courtesy of Erick, beginning around 5:00 this afternoon, through the night and on and on and on, is a much-needed and thorough house cleaning. Personally, I think my plan is brilliant. Cleaning, washing, mopping and such require no electricity, no phone, no internet. I gladly put it off until tomorrow, a rainy-day chore.

Meanwhile, my E-Reader is fully activated and fully booked.

No woman could ask for more.

Updated report: Rain to begin in one hour. Wait, it’s only noon!

Further update: I still have power. I have no patio, such slab being underwater. Cilantro drowned. All else thriving, including my own self.

Rain continues, forecast for more into Monday. Then, woohoo, Guess what! Another tropical storm ramping up in the Pacific, forecast rain.

Silly of me to make plans. Nothing in my life up to and including now has gone to plan. Yet, I continue in hope.

Perhaps “plan” is the wrong word. Maybe a series of words would be better, such as Maybe I can do this, go here, accomplish that. Add a codicil: Might or might not happen.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

June 26, 2025

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Spoof and Other Observations

 

Spoof and Other Observations

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Last week my article garnered surprising comments. The older women seemed to get a hearty chuckle. The younger women were horrified. The men were silent.

It was a spoof! I thought that was obvious. I also know that when I speak I have such a serious face that people often mistake my humor.

The important point though, the only important point, is that I know that the only person I can make happy is myself. And that is a full-time job!

Meanwhile, see the smile on my rainy face. Last night the rain poured, plunged, out of the stormy clouds, our first full-on, hard rain of the season. Never mind how happy a few sprinkly showers made us feel. This is pure joy.

The hot season is over—daytime temperature dropped 20 degrees. Rain is a daily do. I will not have to drag hose for five glorious days. I can say that every day.

Without that daily chore, what will I do? Let me tell you a little bit about living here in Oconahua. I love living in Etzatlan. I love living in Oconahua. The first time I came to Oconahua, it was to tramp over the ruins, talk to the on-site archeologist, to learn about the digs.

The second time I drove through the town deepened my fascination. This trip was to visit new friends, Ana and Michelle. Driving out of this little town of maybe 2400 people, I remember thinking, I could live here. Each time I came that feeling gained a little more weight until decreasing mobility gave me the impetus to make the move to a smaller home.

I miss my wrap-around windows. I miss my Etzatlan friends, all within a short walk. I miss my extensive garden. I make the most of what I have, my herbs, five pots of geraniums, my papaya tree planted in a large garbage can, my two containers of food plants.

No location is perfect—or every location is perfect. My choice. My grass is greenest.

The other morning I cut off seven non-bearing squash blossoms, stuffed them with a sliver of cheese, dipped them in egg, dredged them in masa, fried them in butter. I make the most of what I have.

The next day, for entertainment, I rested my forearms on a window sill and watched a prize-winner of a tractor pull a cultivator over what will become, once again, a corn field. I say a prize-winner tractor. It would garner admiration and acclaim in any antique tractor show. At a guess, I’d say this one is vintage 1930s. Same with the cultivator.

Maybe one would have to have grown up with tractors to understand my fascination. We had older tractors on our farm. I don’t recall that we ever had a shiny new sparkly tractor. But none as old as this fine specimen.

One of the joys of living in the Garden of Mexico is the variety of fruits and vegetables I’ve never seen before. I make a point to try everything and certainly have my favorites. I like to explore their various uses.

Ciruela, trust me, it is unpronounceable. In Spanish every syllable is pronounced and don’t forget the Spanish “r”. Cir-u-e-la. And vowels are pronounced with different sounds than ours. (Seerrr-ew-((long)) a-lah) Now put it all together with speed. Ha. Enough of language lessons.

This lovely native plum is delicious. However, much like the chokecherry we know, it is more pit than pulp. Ciruelas are the size of marbles to ping-pong balls. Common use is as an agua fresca, a delicious drink, refreshing and healthy.

Ana brought me a nice bulging bag of reddish-yellow plums.  Given the similarity to our own fruit of comparable pit-pulp, I wondered if ciruelas would make a good jelly.  

It was a hot and steamy day in the kitchen, worth every salty drop of sweat in a hot kitchen, and, yes, ciruelas make the best plum jam ever!

I’ll end my rambles for today with a dog story. On the far corner of my concrete patio area, overhung with a plumeria tree, there was a 4’ x 6’ area of weedy dirt. I decided to grass it over. My friend Leo brought me the sod and created my small “lawn”. My mutt Lola immediately claimed it as her own. She rolled and rolled, joy evident in every muscle, the biggest smile ever on her doggy face. If she’s not wriggling, she’s perched in the grass, overseeing her kingdom, making sure all is well in our world.

Don’t try to tell me I don’t have a full life.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

June 19, 2025

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How to keep your man happy in bed.

 

How to keep your man happy in bed.

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The following imaginative scenario contains no provocative material. More’s the pity.

Let’s begin with full disclosure. I am 80 and have been on my own recognizance for a goodly number of years. No man in sight. I live in such a place that I am unlikely to garner one of those plum prizes. Or is it prune prize? After all, I am the only single gringo woman in this little cow-town. I am amenable to partnering up, but, let’s face it, that is highly unlikely to happen.

I like men and am not lacking in knowledge. Let me share what I know with you.

What do men love most? Easy question. Football. Go Team!

Me, I’ve never understood football. Hide the ball under a pile of bodies, kill and maim. Where is the fun in that? Baseball, now that is sport. Basketball, I get it. I like it. A game centered around a ball and scoring without blood.

Since this is not about my personal aversion to either football or television, that monster thief of time, thief of thought, thief of . . . you get the picture, the first thing I would recommend is to hang a big screen thief, I mean television, on the bedroom wall opposite the bed. This is advice about what your man likes most. Suck it up, cupcake.  

Otherwise, let him clutter up, I mean, arrange the room to suit his needs in his way. A man likes his space to be his space. You might want to make sure the gadget that controls the television is within his arm’s reach and can be easily located by him at all times. Otherwise, stay out of the way.

After football, what is the next thing closest to every man’s heart?

No, no, no, no. Age, remember. We are addressing needs of men of a certain age.

Food. Yes, food. My suggestions are completely optional, not to mention notional, of course, but football and food go together. What could be more thoughtful and loving than a small fridge for cold drinks and small snacks and perhaps a mini-microwave tucked into one of the corners of the bedroom. This may seem a bit over the top to you, but remember the word “happy”.  At this age what might have formerly seemed decadent, now seems “why ever not”!

Football + food = Happy Man.

What about the female, part in this “part”nership, you ask. I’m getting to that. Yes, my next idea also involves a marriage of television with food. Periodically, not so often that the shared experience becomes mundane nor so seldom that it becomes anniversary material, I suggest that you pop up a huge bowl of popcorn, liberally buttered, to share. Tuck into the other side of the bed next to your man, bowl of popcorn balanced on your laps, snuggle hip to hip and stream a rom-com, something of your choice.

After the movie, after a goodnight kiss or two, if it were me, I’d stroll down the hallway to my own television free, popcorn free zone, to my own bedroom on the opposite side of the house, for a good night’s sleep.

*Back massage and foot rubs optional and reciprocal.

**I have been told I have a rich fantasy life.

***I also was told I’ve been single so long that I’ve lost touch with reality.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

June 12, 2025

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